While available bandwidth and hard drive space are
constantly on the rise, so are our requirements - the
software we author keeps growing larger and larger.
This is even more true when we take into consideration
the size of runtime components that our software often
depends on - from DirectX in games to MDAC in database
applications, each runtime component increases program
size, and this invariably reflects in the product downloadable.
InstallAware works very hard to create
the smallest possible packages for your setups:
- Any compressed files going into your setup are first
decompressed using the InstallAware
Decompressor.
This includes any merge modules, runtime files, and
so on. This decompression step is required because
pre-compressed data, no matter how badly it was originally
compressed, can never be recompressed with a superior
algorithm.
- The files that comprise your setup itself are processed
without any compression until the final step of building
your package. InstallAware builds
your setup files, adds its own runtime, and prepares
the final setup package.
- All your application runtimes, merge modules, your
application itself, and the InstallAware
runtime are then compressed in a single pass using
a special algorithm that is optimized for compressing
program files. You now have a tightly compressed setup
package, with no artificial compression limitations.
InstallAware's unique compressor provides
the best rates in the compression industry, outperforming
all traditional archive management and setup creation
programs:
- InstallAware provides a ground-breaking data
crunching algorithm to make sure setups are as small
as possible.
- The advanced LZMA encoder used in InstallAware
uses technologically superior methods of eliminating
redundancies across multiple files.
- InstallAware
is even equipped with BCJ2 filters that
pre-process your executables and increase their compressibility.
- InstallAware's brand-new 64-bit compression engine provides the highest compression rates in the entire industry, compressing files smaller than even Microsoft manages to achieve with their own native distributions.
Below is a simple chart that compares the
size of several runtime components with and without InstallAware compression. Various legacy runtimes are included to illustrate how dramatic your space savings may be over already compressed package sizes. Note that this chart doesn't even take into account InstallAware's new 64-bit compression engine - expect to save an additional 30% on top of the already enhanced compression savings below, if you are able to use new 64-bit compression. The numbers below are for InstallAware's strongest available compression while remaining compatible with extraction on 32-bit operating systems:
redistributable |
regular |
InstallAware |
size gains |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.8 |
111 MB |
106 MB |
5.5% |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 |
80 MB |
71.8 MB |
10% |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2 |
59.1 MB |
54 MB |
9% |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 |
66.8 MB |
55.6 MB |
17% |
Microsoft SQL Server 2017 |
276 MB |
246 MB |
11% |
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 with Service Pack 1 |
411 MB |
255 MB |
38% |
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP2 x86 and WOW on x64 |
274 MB |
206 MB |
25% |
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP2 x64 |
311 MB |
223 MB |
28% |
Windows Installer 2.0 |
3,446 KB |
1,770 KB |
49% |
Internet Explorer 6 |
79,849 KB |
47,110 KB |
41% |
Microsoft .NET 1.1 |
23,697 KB |
12,338 KB |
48% |
Microsoft .NET 1.1 with Service Pack
1 |
34,150 KB |
11,403 KB |
67% |
Microsoft JSharp 1.1 |
6,764 KB |
2,596 KB |
61% |
Microsoft .NET 2.0 |
22,959 KB |
17,272 KB |
25% |
Microsoft .NET 3.5 (including .NET 2.0 SP1 and .NET 3.0 SP1) |
201,848 KB |
131,438 KB |
35% |
Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005 |
54,791 KB |
33,036 KB |
40% |
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